The Economist explains

Why American elections cost so much

WITH nearly every American election cycle new spending records are broken. This autumn's midterm elections are nearly nine months away, but already candidates in Kentucky's Senate race have raised $19.4m and spent $7.3m. In the 2012 cycle candidates in the Massachusetts Senate race alone spent over $85m. That is small change compared with that year's presidential contest, in which $2 billion was spent (the total cost of the 2012 elections, including congressional races, topped $7 billion). Not every country shells out so much on its democracy: in France, for instance, presidential candidates' campaign spending is capped at $30m. Why are American polls so pricey?

First and most importantly, American elections are expensive because America is a big, rich country: reaching a population of 314m costs a lot, particularly in competitive media markets such as New York and Florida. Also, each election cycle features thousands of contests: local posts that in other countries might be filled by appointees of party bosses are vigorously contested in America. Beyond those structural factors, some blame Citizens United, a Supreme Court decision in 2010 that freed corporations and workers' unions from spending limits on independent political broadcasts (ie, those that are not co-ordinated with particular candidates' campaigns). That led to a big increase in spending in the 2012 election cycle, which in nominal terms was the most expensive ever. Much of it came from "super-PACs"—political action committees that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, provided they disclose their donors—and catchily named "501(c)(4)s", non-profit groups that can spend slightly less freely than super-PACs but do not have to disclose their donors. But American elections have been expensive for a long time. Measured as a share of GDP, the presidential election of 1896 saw more spending than the four next-most expensive presidential elections combined. (The year before that campaign Mark Hanna, a senator, had said: "There are two things that are important in politics. One is money and I can't remember what the other one is.")

In 2012 Barack Obama's campaign made much of its ability to attract donations of $200 or less, and Mr Obama outraised his opponent Mitt Romney in that category by $233.2m to $79.8m. But both campaigns drew most of their money from large donors, as did the biggest super-PACs: the right-leaning Restore Our Future got $30m from Sheldon Adelson, a casino magnate, and his wife, while Priorities USA Action, which supported Mr Obama, raked in millions from unions and law firms. Political spending is not unlimited, however. Corporations and unions may not contribute directly to candidates' campaigns, but the Supreme Court has longheldthat if a person or group wants to pay for advertisements that express their political views, that is a form of speech, and thus protected by the First Amendment. So the simplest reason why American elections are so expensive is that spending on advertisements is protected by the right to freedom of speech.

Not everyone is happy with this state of affairs. Citizens United was decided by a 5-4 majority, and in a stinging dissent the now-retired Justice John Paul Stevens warned that the majority's decision "threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation" by "dramatically enhanc[ing] the role of corporations and unions—and the...interests they represent." Others worry about the growth of "dark money", donations that come from undisclosed or well-shielded donors. Meanwhile the non-coordination requirement for "independent" spending is sometimes poorly enforced, and the border between campaigns and independent groups is less distinct than it could be. Despite such concerns, campaign costs are unlikely to fall. A super-PAC supporting the as-yet-unannounced candidacy of Hillary Clinton in a presidential election still more than two years off has already raised more than $4m. That's a lot of money for a notional candidate, but probably much less than 1% of what the 2016 Democratic nominee will eventually spend.

Readers' comments

"...and the border between campaigns and independent groups is less distinct than it could be."
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Ain't that the truth. When every political message by everyone involved becomes a variation of -
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"Our candidate is an eagle scout with a beautiful wife and three lovely children, while their candidate is an ex-con with five ex-wives and seven illegitimate children..." -
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After a while it begins to look like a big expensive joke.

It's true that Citizen's United removed the restrictions on donations from corporate or union sources for advertisements within 60 days of an election.

However, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't the first case to define corporations as people (That started all the way back in 1819 with Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward). They aren't defined as a single person either, but rather an association of people with the same rights as individuals. It also wasn't the first case to define money put towards political donations as "free speech" (Buckley v. Valeo).

It also still does not allow corporations/unions to donate unlimited money directly to campaigns, but if they can run advertisements for or against campaigns you can argue that is only a matter of semantics. That's likely what the campaign would've spent the money on anyways. Or at least, the campaign no longer has to pay for as many advertisements as it used to because somebody else is, which is effectively the same as a direct donation as their financial needs are equally alleviated by the donation.

At least the 501(c)(4) part of this comes pretty close to money laundering and there is probably precedent to support the idea that indirect exchanges for the purpose of receiving direct benefits from a campaign as if a direct donation were made still violate the remaining election or bribery law still on the books. However, those who are required to disclose their donors in PACs probably wouldn't meet the definition for money laundering because the source of funds isn't concealed.

Unfortunately, while the Constitution guarantees the right to free speech it doesn't guarantee the right to be heard. You can speak all you want but it's mostly only the people who have lots of money who get to be heard. It doesn't matter that corporate profits provide a huge advantage towards being heard compared to what the average Joe or even an association of non-corporate individuals can achieve (unless there are an enormous number of them). At least that's what this ruling implies in overturning the ban as discriminatory.

I suppose we could make PBS/NPR a non-partisan platform for the common person to be heard around election time (such that it isn't already) to counterbalance the advantages corporate donors have over shaping the debate on basically every other channel. Of course, I guess you could still pay people to skew that representation of the popular interest....The way around that is to have debates I suppose; money isn't a substitute for facts and most people will know truth when they hear it if they actually get both sides.

The simplest answer is: because it works. Why do congressmen spend half their time fundraising? Why did Barak Obama refuse McCain's challenge to accept "public funds"? Because money buys time slots and that let's you set the narrative. It's not so different from when politicians had to print their own ads. Those who could out produce won.

The most direct answer is because the return on investment is out of proportion to what is invested. Obama's election was able to redirect 1/6 of the nation's economy in the form of health care. Have control over a few trillion dollars by spending little more than a few billion? It's potentially the best bargain out there!

Shrink campaign spending by shrinking what it can buy. Shrink the government.

The answer to the question is actually much simpler than this article suggests: limit the length of campaigns. One could reduce the spending by large factors (order of magnitude?) if one simply limited the campaign season to something like 3 months.

That's why elections in parliamentary systems are cheaper. One can spend money infinitely fast, but there's a limit to how fast you can _effectively_ spend it, and people contribute to fund effective spending, so a shorter campaign season is by definition cheaper. The money would still flow, but it would become direct lobbying, rather than lobbying masquerading as campaign support of a challenger to the incumbent.

The problem, of course, is that this runs into the blanket protection of the First Amendment. And I'm afraid if I have to choose between keeping the First Amendment and cheaper campaigns, I'll keep the amendment.

I'm not sure how you would go about limiting the length of the campaign "season." In parliamentary systems, when the next election will be held is variable. So you call an election, and you can set it a maximum number of weeks out, and that automatically limits things somewhat. But when you know when the next election is going to be held, the only limit on campaigns is that they (mostly) can't effectively start before the previous election for the particular office is over.